The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(5)

Please, not that. Anything but that.

He nodded solemnly. “Aye, but only for a while. I will come see you in London as soon as I am done here. The king will wish a report, and I can give it to him personally. I will bring Maud and the children. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She nodded; he knew she would. He smiled teasingly. “Besides, I want to see all these suitors Hereford has been telling me about.”

Heat crawled up her cheeks. That was one of the reasons she’d come. The attention at court had become impossible and none of the men interested her. No man had interested her until…

“Does that mean you will spare them?”

It took him a moment to follow her leap in conversation. His mouth tightened—whether from anger or the unpleasantness of the topic, she didn’t know.

“Your misguided charity changes nothing.”

“But it isn’t fair—”

He cut her off in a voice that brokered no argument. “This is war, Rosalin. Fair doesn’t enter into it. They nearly killed three of my men. Whatever the provocation, prisoners cannot be allowed to fight back. Ever. Especially these prisoners. They are not worth your tears.”

“But—”

He cut her off again, his face getting that implacable, we’re-done-talking-about-it look. “I will hear no more on the subject. These men have been given only a temporary reprieve from the executioner’s axe. But they have proved too dangerous even for that. They are brigands who fight without chivalry and honor. Their leader is a vicious scourge who would slit your pretty neck without thinking twice. Do you understand?”

Her eyes widened. Her brother spoke with such conviction, but his words did not jibe with the man she’d watched the past couple weeks. Knowing that Cliff would not be gainsaid, all she could do was nod.

He smiled. “Good, then we will hear no more of this. What’s this I hear about your taking after our illustrious ancestor?”

Rosalin blushed at the gentle teasing about her embarrassing nickname. Their infamous great-great-great-aunt Rosamund Clifford had captured the heart of King Henry II and had gone down in history as “The Fair Rosamund.” Apparently, the men at court had taken to calling her “The Fair Rosalin.”

She tried to play along with her brother’s teasing, but she could not forget the horrible fate awaiting the men in the prison, especially the one languishing in the pit prison, who’d been forced to defend his friend because of her.

All through the evening meal and the long hours of the night it stayed with her. She could think of nothing else.

It was wrong. The word echoed over and over in her head no matter what she tried to do. Eventually the voice grew too loud to ignore. Sometime in the small hours of the night, she rose from bed, donned a pair of slippers and a dark hooded cloak, and slipped out of her chamber. She didn’t know whether she could do anything, but she knew she had to try.

This was partially her fault, and rightly or wrongly, if she didn’t do something, she would feel responsible for the deaths of those men for the rest of her life.

But it was one man’s death that would haunt her. The man she’d watched for over two weeks, the man who’d sacrificed himself, who had selflessly given his food and shouldered more of the burden for his friend, did not deserve to die. She knew it deep in her soul with a certainty that could not be ignored. War or not, it was wrong, and she had to try to make it right, even if…even if it meant letting him go free.

Once the treacherous thought was out, it felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She knew what she had to do—or try to do, if it were possible.

Exiting the Snow Tower, she paused in the shadows to get her bearings. She didn’t have a plan. All she knew was that the Scot had been moved to the pit prison, which was located below the old keep next to the burned-down Great Hall. She’d walked past it every night on making her deliveries—quickly, as the forbidding old stone building hadn’t been used in some time and seemed very dark. But there was a torch there now, burning from its iron perch beside the doorway. Drawing a little closer, she kept tight to the shadows of the wall and watched.

Dear God, what was she doing? She couldn’t help but feel the impossibility of her plight. How was a sixteen-year-old girl going to break anyone out of a pit prison without help? Without a plan? She couldn’t very well just walk in there, open the door, and pull him out.

Could she?

What about the guards? Even though she couldn’t see anyone right now, and the pit prison offered little chance of escape, there had to be at least one.

There was. A soldier appeared from the direction of the warden’s tower, where the prisoners were being held, walked back and forth a few times in front of the entry to the old keep, and then disappeared. About five minutes later he did it again. After two more times, she had to hope it was a pattern. The next time he left, she waited until he was around the corner and then darted into the entrance of the keep.

It was pitch black and cold. Very cold. Chill-run-down-your-spine cold.

There are no such thing as ghosts…no such thing as ghosts.

But if the dead were ever inclined to walk the earth, this would be the perfect place to do so.

After giving her eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkness, she moved around the room, looking for the entrance to the pit prison, finding it in a small stone antechamber off the main entry. The room was no more than three or four feet wide, with a small wooden door covering one corner of the stone floor. She heaved a sigh of relief, seeing that the door had a simple latch rather than a lock.